RBI approves Salee Sukumaran Nair as MD, CEO of Tamilnad Mercantile Bank

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Friday approved the appointment of Salee Sukumaran Nair as the managing director and chief executive officer of Tamilnad Mercantile Bank (TMB), for a period of three years.

His last assignment was as deputy managing director and chief credit officer of State Bank of India, until May 2024, where he was responsible for managing the credit portfolio.

This comes at a time when the bank is being headed by a three-member Committee of Executives (COEs) overseeing its administration and operations. The COE was appointed after the central bank rejected the candidates proposed by the bank in April, following Krishnan Sankarasubramaniam's resignation as MD and CEO in September last year, citing personal reasons.

Nair, a postgraduate in applied electronics, started his banking career in 1987. He joined India’s largest public sector bank, State Bank of India, as a probationary officer. In a career spanning more than 35 years, he has handled various assignments, mostly in the Corporate Accounts Group, managing large corporates.

He also had two assignments in the International Banking Group of SBI, first in New York, USA, and later heading the Australian operations based in Sydney. He also managed branches in Rajasthan and Western Uttar Pradesh and was involved in the merger of State Bank of Bikaner & Jaipur with SBI. He has extensive experience in managing stressed assets.

He took over as chief general manager in the Stressed Asset Vertical of the bank in July 2017, where he was engaged in resolving NPAs through restructuring, IBC, compromise, and ARC sale routes. Subsequently, in April 2020, he took over the Stressed Assets Resolution Group as deputy managing director, a position he held until September 2021.

During his tenure in the Stressed Assets Resolution Group of SBI, he oversaw the reduction of peak NPAs from 10.96 per cent to 4.90 per cent. He then took over as deputy managing director in charge of the SME, agriculture, and financial inclusion vertical from September 2021 to July 2022. After that, he became the deputy managing director and chief credit officer of SBI. The appointment is subject to shareholder approval.